Presentation given by Rob Blakemore on 18 April 2018 to the South Wales and West of England branch in Bristol

1. High
Performance
Teams

2. Our Primary Objectives:
▪ Supporting project management with
people-related skills, tools & techniques
▪ Researching, developing and sharing knowledge
through three focus groups:
– Stakeholder Engagement Focus Group (SEFG)
– Communication Focus group (CFG)
– Working Abroad Focus Group (WAFG)

3. ▪ Recognising a Team;
▪ The importance of Organisational Context and Values;
▪ ‘Agile’ Teamwork;
▪ Understanding & Managing Team Dynamics;
▪ Maintaining & Improving Team Productivity;
Areas of Discussion

4. Recognising a
Team

5. Teamwork is a group of people working
in collaboration or co-operation
towards a common goal.
APM Knowledge 6th edition
“When you hand good people possibility, they do great things”
Biz Stone (co-creator Twitter), Things a Little Bird Told Me:
Confessions of a Creative Mind

6. Team Characteristics
• Identity
• Close knit, trusting and transient
• Shared values
• Complementary skills
• Complementary roles
• Common goal, vision, purpose
• Visible and active leadership
• Clear formal roles and
responsibilities
• Clear and agreed ground rules
• Non-insular
• Resilient, Celebratory
“The strength of the team is each
individual member,
The strength of each member is the team”
Phil Jackson [American Professional Basketball Player,
Coach and Author]

7. Team
Make-up Individuals:
• With different skills and
personalities
• Come from different
backgrounds [culture,
organisation]
• Can be co-located or
distributed
Teams can be:
• Virtual
• Working in different
time zones
• Spanning organisations

8. What Makes a Team
High Performing?

9. The importance of
Organisational
Context & Values

10. Home Office Project Delivery Profession

11. e.g. Home Office Operating Context
▪ Policy (not PPM) Led, and Operationally Focussed, but developing PPM
as a Profession as part of the 2020 vision;
▪ High Ministerial, Parliamentary & Public Profile;
▪ Increasingly takes measured and appropriate Technical and Integration
Risk;
▪ Often a Target of Negative Press Reporting;
▪ Under Pressure to Reduce Spend;
▪ Mid-way through ‘Digital’ and ‘Smarter Working’ Operational
Transformation as part of achieving the 2020 vision;

12. e.g. Home Office Excellence Campaign
▪ ‘Appreciative Enquiry’ & ‘Culture Call’;
▪ ‘Leadership in Action’;
▪ ‘Reward & Recognition’;
▪ ‘Early Intervention’;
▪ ‘IE Shadow Executive Board’;
▪ International Problem Solving.

13. I am at my best when:
• I trust people, and they trust me
back
• I am brave enough to speak out and
hear back
• I seek out and acknowledge the best
in everyone
• We join up and join together to make
a difference
• I take the lead and can make
change happen
• I am honest and courageous enough
to show when I am vulnerable
Culture Call
‘Organisational
communication
has reflected the
new positive
mood and people
see a greater
willingness to
celebrate
success’
Dr Valerie Gallow
[Facing into Change:
Culture Call at
Immigration
Enforcement] IES

15. Giving Back To The Community
HMPO’s Customer Service Management Team (CSMT), based in Southport, are finalists in the UK
National Customer Contact Centre Awards 2018 [‘Positive Impact on the Community’ Category – The
Community 100 Volunteering Programme].
‘Your team of people
are great... really
getting stuck into the
job they have been
given. They have been
a great help and
worked well alongside
regular volunteers and
staff. We have been so
happy with this
partnership and thank
you for organising’
Queenscourt Hospice

16. External influence: The ‘start-up
culture’: e.g. Hubble
‘Our office culture is built around the values of our
business: empowerment, experience and empathy. We
want to empower our team to do their best work without
micro-management and strict hierarchies and make sure
they have a great experience in the office.’
‘However, it’s important to create the distinction between
‘corporate’ and ‘casual’. Corporate doesn’t mean you are
super productive and casual doesn't mean you are a
slob. .. Most corporate work environments are following
suit, with the CEO of Blackstone, one of the biggest
investment managers in the world, adopting a casual
workplace...’
Tushar Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Hubble

17. ‘Agile’ Teamwork

18. Agile

19. What about ‘Agile’ teams?
▪ Different Governance and
Risk tolerance and
management approaches;
▪ Planning is usually more
visual, regular, ‘active’
and there is an increased
need to solve problems
by working together
quickly;
▪ External communication
of implications of the
backlog is essential;

20. What’s different about working in an
‘Agile’ delivery team?
Which elements did you
experience?
• Planning & running the team
• Individual roles in the
team/behaviours
• Team development

21. Understanding
& Managing
Team Dynamics

22. Belbin
Belbin Team Roles SHAPER
COMPLETER
IMPLEMENTER
RESOURCE
INVESTIGATOR
CO-ORDINATORTEAM WORKER
PLANT
MONITOR
EVALUATOR
SPECIALIST
Interpretation of source Belbin

23. S.C.A.R.F. In Leadership
Communications
▪ Status – relative importance to others;
▪ Certainty – being able to predict the future;
▪ Autonomy – a sense of control over events;
▪ Relatedness – safety with others, of friend rather than foe;
▪ Fairness – perception of fair exchanges between people.
“SCARF model by David Rock, co-founder, NeuroLeadership Institute,
Sydney, Australia.“
First published in the NeuroLeadership Journal 2008’

24. Maintaining &
Improving Team
Productivity

25. High Performing Team Characteristics
• Ambitious performance goals compared to ‘ordinary’
teams
• Heightened sense of mutual accountability
• Exceptional clarity of purpose
• Willingness to challenge others and encouragement of
risk to foster creativity/innovation
• Independent and co-dependent range of knowledge,
skills and understanding which are applied consistently
well to facilitate successful task completion
• Leadership and followership as demonstrable emergent
and negotiated qualities/roles
• Strong social cohesion which is purposely challenged in
order to meet the task
High Performance Teams
exhibit a number of essential
behavioural characteristics
that allow them to out-perform
other more ‘ordinary’ teams
inside or outside their
company. High Performance
Teams are also fired by a
deep-seated and highly
tangible sense of purpose,
reflected in the following
characteristics –
Cardiff Metropolitan University

26. Team Development
Teams do not just become high
performing because they have been given
a common objective.
“Great teams do not hold back with one and other. They are
unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes,
their weaknesses and their concerns without fear of reprisal”
Patrick Lencioni, Author ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’

27. Common Activities that Support
Team Building
Brainstorming
Informal team building events
Formal team building events
Sprint - planning
Time boxing
Workshops
Joint problem solving

28. Some of the Challenges
Life cycle changes cause change in team
dynamics – continued cohesion needs to
be managed
“Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want
others to react rather than based on what they really think”
Patrick Lencioni, Author ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’
Motivation and team dynamics can be
impacted if career and personal
aspirations are not being met
A common well focused goal is important
for developing teams – it can also be a
weakness as projects are susceptible to
change
In larger teams – team development is
delegated. Overall performance needs to
be managed to retain consistency. As
teams get larger the effort to maintain a
team ethos increases

29. What Makes Teamwork Stall
Fragmented
Team
"Remember teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do
that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.“
Patrick Lencioni, Author ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’
Lack of interest
Resentment or
misbehaviour of
team members
One person
dominates the
process
Team is not
motivated
A team member
is too quiet
Over dependency
on team leaderTeam is not
producing
Conflict and
argument
Too much
accommodation /
agreement

30. Further
Reading Katzenbach, JR and Smith.
D.K.,2005.
The Wisdom of Teams.
New York. N.Y.
Harper Business
Margerison C. and McKann, D.
1995
Team management: practical
new approaches. 2nd edition.
Didcot Management Books
2000

31. References
▪ http://thingsalittlebirdtoldme.com/
▪ http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/resource/facing-change-culture-call-immigration-enforcement
▪ http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/engineering-and-technology/groups-and-teamwork/content-
section-0?active-tab=description-tab
▪ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/62736/phil-jackson
▪ https://www.wiley.com/en-us/search?pq=patrick+lencioni%7Crelevance%7Cauthor%3APatrick+M.+Lencioni
▪ https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2013/05/31/21-quotes-from-henry-ford-on-business-leadership-and-
life/#52829338293c
▪ https://khub.net/govpdc
▪ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/project-delivery-capability-framework-for-civil-servants
▪ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCulllraGmP2xPJrTkvF2lBA
▪ https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/how-tech-start-ups-have-redefined-idea-company-culture
▪ https://www.apm.org.uk/about-us/apm-5-dimensions-of-professionalism/
▪ https://discover.office.com/catalysts-for-team-success

32. Thank You & Questions
Find out more about our work:
PeopleSIG@apm.org.uk
@PeopleSIG